Blueberry coconut and chocolate hazelnut financiers

Around the same time I made the icecreams (yes, plural, I still have images of vanilla bean icecream to upload, that's for another post), I had lots and lots of leftover egg whites. I didn't feel like making macarons, but I was meeting some friends that week, so I decided to make some financiers to share. I used the same recipe for the raspberry financiers I made previously, tweaked it around a little, and came up with two new flavours - chocolate hazelnut and blueberry coconut.

Peach and raspberry pies

It's my first interview later on in the afternoon. Hopefully things aren't as bad as expected cos I know somehow the first few interviews are always tough. Well, practice makes perfect and I will manage to master the tips of how-to-pass-through-an-interview-successfully in time to come. (:

Here's ending off with some white peach and raspberry pies I made a few weeks back. I had enough pastry and filling to make one big pie and one miniature one. It's my first attempt at doing a lattice design atop a pie, and I must say it should have been easy, just that my pastry making skills are not up to par as the weather in Singapore is simply blistering heat 24/7 and I usually get like overworked dough before I even know it. :( I need to conquer tart dough! That means I'll be making more tarts/pies in the near future!

Mini pie slice with a mini scoop of Haagan Daaz's Apricot and Cream icecream. Yums.

Pear banana walnuts muffins

Let me tell you more about these lovely muffins. I think that the pear is an often overlooked fruit for baking muffins. The common choices are banana, chocolate(fine, it's not a fruit but it is a popular choice!), apple, blueberries or raspberries. Yet, the humble pear is a really good fruit to use in baked goods cos they have a subtle light fragrance that heightens the finished product. If you get what I mean. The pears also soften considerably after baking so it doesn't matter if the pears are still not yet fully ripe. Add some chopped walnuts for the crunch factor, well, I think I've found a pretty healthy muffin recipe! (:

Banana blueberry muffins

I'm currently sprouting a muffins addiction (which is a really really bad habit since it's carbs!) but I try my best, substituting plain ol' flour with oats flour (which basically refers to the throwing of rolled oats into the food processor). First up on the muffins list is these blueberry banana muffins. I think they're pretty yums, but wait till you see the next entry - the pear banana walnuts combo. Which are, in my opinion, even better than these blueberry babies.

Cutie pie niece and nephew who came over for a visit when I was i the midst of baking these muffins.

Adorable-y cute. (:

A depressing weekend

There are many movies nowadays that are adapted from popular novels. And although I can see why the movie companies do it (why, for the money of course!), sometimes I think they should just leave the books alone. Stories read in black ink on white paper, just seems so much more arresting than the feelings actors can evoke. Words just seems to capture the moment, the emotions, the characters ever more clearly than how some actors and directors think.

Having just watched the movie The Time Traveler's Wife (without having first read the book), I think it was a nice movie yes. But often, when the movie plot is derived from a book, and one that I've actually read, the movie just loses its overall appeal. Sure, I head to the cinemas just like anyone else to catch such films when they are released. But, deep down, I secretly think that always, no matter how good the movie was, the book automatically wins, hands down. I feel that now that I've watched the film, when I read the book, I'll probably change my opinion of the movie and think that the show wasn't that good afterall.

And speaking of movies/books, I've just finished reading My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult, another big screen adaptation. I must say, the whole book made me think a lot. About siblings, about life, about health, about the law, about choices and most of all, about fate. I cried while flipping through the last few pages of the novel. The ending was just so...I can't think of how to describe, but it was just so sad...

Then on the same day I finished the book, I was watching telly (how rare! I'm always watching vids on my computer. snigger) at night. In the drama, someone's grandma dies in a fire and the granddaughter was held back by others cos she wanted to dash in to save her granny. Seriously, enough is enough.

What an emotionally depressing weekend.